#gotham judge

[indelibleills]

Nightwing has been bringing red robin with him for the weekly welfare check on Jason. It’s going SO well.

[on-the-clear-blue]

Down in the streets of Gotham, in the side alley next to Express Urgent Care run by one Leslie Thompkins and that was funded by the Martha Wayne Foundation was a soup kitchen.

Well...a soup kitchen of sorts. Not in any way official but if you were hungry in Crime alley you knew that the food would be safe and warm...and it was a place where *you* could be safe and warm.

Danny had left a week after his parents found out that he was Phantom, a week after he had seen their grief, the regret and pain in their eyes. The week had been spent in suspense, he knew that they needed to talk about what had happened but neither of his parents were ever able to even start bringing it up before they were sobbing.

Danny knew his parents loved him, thst his father felt soul crushing guilt, that his mother spent hours staring at herself in the mirror, as if she didn't even know who was looking back at her.

And to spare them both, Danny left.

It wasn't hard to do, not when he could turn invisible and phase through walls, a final text to Sam and Tucker to say his good byes (he knew that they would break and tell his parents where he would be going) and a particularly hard hug to leave from Jazz, Danny flew off with only a back pack.

He had traveled across the US for a few months, occasionally snagging a post card from a super store to send off home, paying only when he had the excess funds (Sam's rants about mega rich corporate billionaires let him know just which stores wouldn't miss the few bucks the cards sold for)

He had met up with Dani a few times, when she was in the country, handing him Vlads credit card and telling him to keep it (though he never did) only ever using it to book a room for a few nights at a hotel to clean himself up and sleep in a real bed.

He settled in Gotham after a while, he had briefly stayed in Faucett but that place didn't have nearly enough ecto for him to live comfortably.

Gotham on the other hand? It had everything, cops that don't question why a teen is on the streets, natural ecto up the wazoo and well...a crime rate that would dissuade his parents ever looking for him there.

He had set up a more permanent shelter in an abandoned apartment building (after chasing out the low level drug dealers that were using it) and found that he kinda liked the vibes of the place under the blatant crimes being committed in broad day light.

Sure people could see you getting mugged and look the other way, but if you were still alive and there 5 minutes later, they would come back, hand you something to clean up your now bloody nose and point out the bodega that had the best sandwiches.

It was a sense of community that Danny didn't know he had missed for the many months he traveled.

His first "cook out" wasn't even supposed to be a cook out, his apartment building was mostly wood and he didn't trust himself to not burn it down, so he came outside, setting up a portable stove and setting up a pot filled with some, water to boil up a soup mix.

As he waited for it to come to temp, he saw the group of homeless rubbing their hands together, watching him with curiosity, though that quickly turned to hunger as the smell of the soup spilled out into the alley.

Instead of turning the others away Danny only shrugged, pulled out his spare paper bowls and handed them out, taking a few bites first to show that it was safe to eat.

What followed was a sort of tradition, Danny would come out a few times a day, take out his hot plate and pot and set up a soup, others started asking if they could pitch in, and well...Danny would have loved to keep providing it freely but his food was quickly dwindling.

So his soup got add in, some jerky that Crazy Tom had got tossed in, a few herbs (re:weeds) were added in by Miss O'Connor, and Danny didn't even know where Lady Dimond pulled out some spices from, but he wasn't about to question the her, he had learned never to question where the working girls hid their things.

And it sort of grew from there, who ever was around came by, some came out of their way to share a meal, but it became a meeting place of sorts "Come by the Kitchen at noon, Tom got his hands on some steak! And it ain't even smells bad!"

Sure gangs tried to pull up on the meeting place, tried to intimidate the people there or coerce them into doing something...well that was until the host, some punk teen with hair darker than black and blue eyes that were so light they were white came up, and dished out a heavy handed fist into their jaws and sent them packing.

And so the Kitchen became a safe space, if you were hungry, if you were in danger, come by the little alley way, right next to the Express Urgent Care, the Host will take care of you there, if your willing to share, to stay peaceful with the rest of the gathered people, then you were welcome to grab a bite and relax, because the Kitchen was always safe.

---

It would be a few years since the Kitchen started, since people had brought chairs and tables, since an old grill of questionable origin was left out side it, since tarps with only a few holes were hung up to keep the place dry when it rained, since rugs covered the ground and the the alley it was in was swept clean of any needles or cigarette butts.

But for one boy it had only been a few short days since his Mama died, since he had found her cold and dead in the bathroom, a belt tied around her arm and a needle still in her hand.

Jason was miserable, he had stayed with her for the a single day before he knew he would have to leave, the body of his mother would start to decompose soon, so he did what he had too, calling the police with his mother's phone that didn't have a lot of minutes left on it, telling them the address before hanging up and leaving it there so he couldn't be tracked.

He couldn't be there when the cops showed up, foster care would do shit for him, and at least his Mama would be buried, and not left to rot in their bath tub.

So a young Jason Todd, scared, alone and hungry came to the Kitchen, as his mother had told him to many times before, had told him to seek out it's Host if anything ever happened to her...and well...at the very least he would get something to eat...

[erinwantstowrite]

itsy bitsy peter!!

i fear peter has always been a strange child

[sweetlullabyebye]

Characters that are absolute lovesick disasters but also brutal killers are... definitely something

[purble-sarah]

i was gonna fill the whole sketch page but then after two days i magically forgot how to draw and i couldn't fill the whole page

[bruciemilf]

I think Harvey has Bruce’s name tattooed on his neck. Bruce has Harvey’s name tattooed on his thigh. He also has the Judge in italic letters, carved into his spine, and Two Face, just on his ass. Even better if the other has absolutely no idea

[castillon02]

“The bad news,” Tim said, “is that you’ve probably been avoiding the whole retirement fund thing because you’ve consciously or subconsciously realized that you aren’t financially solvent enough to do it. The good news is that there are a lot of ways to diversify your revenue streams.”

Jason grimaced. “Branding.” 

“Branding,” Tim agreed. “Who does your marketing?” 

“Two high-schoolers, a PTA mom, and Velma at the senior center.” 

“Nice range of demographics.” Tim nodded approvingly. “We’re gonna do a line of merch—Red Hood t-shirts, water bottles, gas masks—but we should start other efforts at the same time. How do you feel about short-term investments? Crime Alley has a lot of small businesses, right?” 

“Uh, yeah?” Jason said. “Franchises never make it there.” 

“So, the laundromat could probably use a new washer,” Tim said. “Summer is coming up; one of the bodegas could probably use a slurpee machine. And one of the food trucks could probably stand to upgrade its fryer capacity. Do it like Shark Tank. People can come up with their own upgrade proposal and show you that they’re a responsible investment, and then they’ll have ownership of the idea instead of having Red Hood come down from his throne of duffle bags full of heads to ask if they need better lighting for their OnlyFans.” 

Jason opened his mouth, closed it again. “You want me to do Crime Alley Shark Tank.” 

“I want two of your lieutenants and two well-respected community members to do Crime Alley Shark Tank,” Tim corrected. “You’re a wanted felon and people’s attempts to kill you would be distracting. You can be a guest judge on the finale.” 

[tales-of-the-ghost-zone]

Was scrolling through tumblr when I came across a Panda Redd skit about lawyers and judges. And one of the comments was, there’s no good judges in Gotham because they’d be killed immediately. And my mind instantly said, “but what if Danny grew up, moved to Gotham, and became a judge 🤔”

Cause like the boys already half dead, they can’t kill him. And he’s king of The Infinite Realm so he can’t be bribed! All his friends and family are either ghosts or liminal’s so they can’t hold anyone he cares about hostage to get him to do what they want! He would be the perfect judge for Gotham!!!

Plus like in the case of murders, he could talk to the ghosts of the victim’s of the crime to find out if the person on trial is really guilty of the crime. It wouldn’t really be all that admissible in court. Unless he worked to get some laws changed. Maybe he works to get it legal for the ghost of victims to be allowed to testify at the trials. Cause really who better to prove the persons guilt than the person who was killed!!!!

[vertigoartgore]

1991's Batman/Judge Dredd: Judgment on Gotham page 3. Script by Alan Grant & John Wagner, art by Simon Bisley and lettering by Todd Klein.

[armed-with-a-waffle-iron]

Something people who haven't read Helena Bertinelli don't get is Helena's relationship with killing. She has never killed or tried to kill because she thought executing someone fixes the world.

Huntress: Year One #4

Even initially, it was always about honour or closure or vengeance or survival, and she saw herself as pretty much damned to hell, even says it in Huntress: Year One. And she grows too, and soon leaves that murderous intent in her past though her feelings about killing remain way more nuanced than say Bruce's.

[gummybearstastelikesadness]

Vlads secretary recently quit in the middle of Vladco having a minor business expansion into Gotham and now he needs to hire a new one.

The bats are currently investigating one Vladimir Masters after he started to bring his business into Gotham. They’re very interested in the suspicious nature he acquired his wealth. Maybe it’s time to forge some resumes and bust out some old identities, Tim still has that blonde wig after all.

[wanderingmind867]

I feel like Two-Face having a third split personality makes some amount of sense, although I also get why it isn't explored that often. I mean… Two-Face is known for Twos. His gimmick is duality. Having a character like The Judge ruins that gimmick. But at the very least, I do like when media with Two-Face tries to add elements of that third personality into their stories.

For an example of that, I love pointing at the Telltale Series games. When you get the choice to save Catwoman from a sneak attack by some crooks or save Harvey from a giant spotlight crashing onto his skull, the game then offers a branching path for Harvey. Both paths end the same way (because he'd already been injected with a serum by the children of arkham that lowers impulse control and makes people more prone to strong emotional responses), but they develop his character in significantly different ways. I suppose I should be worried about spoiling this for people, but I personally like spoilers, so i'm not that bothered.

If Batman saves Harvey, then the drug still works it's magic and makes him a paranoid wreck, obsessed with consolidating power around himself. But it also makes him less bitter towards Batman. His darker side begins to idolize the vigilante justice aspect of Batman, and I believe he even creates a special police force modeled after Batman (I think). In essence, he becomes a fanatic obsessed with the strength of the bat. Elements of The Judge can be seen in how his paranoia makes him try to become a dictator.

So Two-Face without the scars is (if i remember correctly) a lighter shade of evil. He hasn't got the physical trauma to deal with, he's only got the mental stuff. And it's a little easier for him to manage one without the other. He still looks the same, so it's not like he's gotta be scared of being judged for his looks. So that might honestly help his sanity a tiny bit. I remember the scene where you see him in his office before his mayoral portrait is painted. Without the scars, he's paranoid and messing with his coin, but he's not angry and violent. He's more just paranoid and lashing out.

Meanwhile, a Batman who lets Harvey's skin burn and scar over ends up creating the Two-Face we all know. This man spends half the game hiding behind bandages, or phantom of the opera style face masks. He resents Batman, since Batman saved Catwoman and left him to burn! He can't even have a normal mayoral portrait taken, because one side of his face is red and covered in welts and scars! This Two-Face is so deranged that he can't even be reasoned with. Which kind of makes sense. I imagine it's hard to think when your skin is always pained and your mind is full of a drugged substance.

In either case, Harvey Dent gets put through the ringer. He gets drugged. He thinks his girlfriend cheated on him with his best friend. He potentially mauls a criminal to death with his bare hands. He has a psychotic break. But there's two different flavours of psychotic break. There's the version where he's obsessed with bringing batman style justice to the city, and then there's the version where he hates Batman and blames him for Gotham becoming a hellhole that he has to fix.

If you read into all this, it really feels like Harvey develops a different split personality depending on what happens to him. If he isn't scarred, he gains a split personality in the form of "The Judge", an authoritarian obsessed with law and order (at all costs). And if he is scarred, then he gains a split personality in the form of "Two-Face", an angry and violent man who thinks he has to burn the city to the ground to make it better. Both his negative personalities showcase his obsession with justice and order, but they showcase it in slightly different ways. It's pretty cool.

[garpen]

So is Duke aware of your bad spelling? Does he know the typos are yours not theirs? ❤️😘😛

"Bully, bully, bully," I say three times into the mirror. I wait, and watch as anon materializes behind me. /j

[insomnova]

realizing my recent jason posts makes it sound like i hate his character when that could not be farther from the truth. i love my unhinged toxic self sabotaging king. he has so many problems and over half of them are directly his doing. watching people grind down his sharp edges until he's a misunderstood softboy is what gets me up in arms like leave him alone he's doing absolutely horrible things to himself and everyone around him and you're going 2 accept that buddy!!

[roguestorm]

Is Bruce Wayne basically like someone from Evanston that says they’re from Chicago? Do people from the city proper get mad about it.

Yeah, I’m sure there are some people who are like oh my God, you’re from Bristol, stop talking about Gotham like you know anything!!

But then there’s also the fact that the Wayne family is like influential politically, economically, and socially in Gotham. So he’s part of the ecosystem in Gotham proper even if he doesn’t live there.

Like, I don’t know how Bostonians feel about Brookline, but JFK was still from Boston, you know? The Kennedys were a Boston institution even if they didn’t reside in Boston.